ELY TWP, Mich. (WZMQ) – Nearly 100 years after Michigan’s deadliest mining disaster at the Barnes-Hecker Mine, the site that has long been left to the elements has been purchased by Ely Township, along with the help of an anonymous donor.
The property remains as the burial grounds of 41 iron miners, after only 10 bodies were recovered following hundreds of feet of muddy rock and water that caved in November 3, 1926. Only one survived.
Glenn Wing is the Ely Township clerk. He says his ties in the area, along with many others, connect deeply to the tragedy.
“In terms of respect for the dead, and what their families went through, we felt it was time, in fact way past time, to have something to honor these men,” said Wing. “They removed everything of value from here and just left this sit and go back into the woods. Some of these guys didn’t even have funerals at that time.”
“This runs deeply in my family as well as a lot of families,” he said. “Our ultimate goal here in the end is to get this declared as a park and as a burial ground.”
Last year, the Barnes-Hecker 100th Anniversary Committee was created, made up of members from the Marquette Regional History Center, Michigan Iron Industry Museum, the Ishpeming Historical Society, NMU Beaumier Center, and Cliffs Shaft Museum.
Leading up to 2026, the committee has generated a memorial project beginning once the land was purchased. This includes clearing the area to make room for a number of significant statues and plaques throughout the site’s ruins, detailing its history. It also includes creating a parking lot near the old machinery house and extending paved trails towards the cave-in site.
“One of our plans is to put a paved walk to where the cave-in happened,” explained Wing. “On the way, we’re having 51 bronze plaques made, one for each man with information and a picture about them.”
Over the winter, these plaques will be designed before construction and trail-making starts in the spring.
